Today I read Genesis 19 where the Lord destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. It has always amazed me that Lot and his family could be so complacent in an obviously evil city. The story goes that as the angels approach the city, Lot happens to be near the gate and sees them coming. I assume he recognizes them for what they are because he quickly tries to get them in his house before they are noticed. The men of the city come to Lot's house after a little while and tell Lot to bring the three men out so they can rape them essentially. Now, the King James Version has Lot offering up his two virgin daughters to try and placate the men which is quite reprehensible to me. I can think of few things as repulsive in this life as rape of any kind.
The JST however, clears up the matter and restores our belief that Lot is in fact, a good man. As the men demand the release of the three angels Lot pleads with them to let them alone and the men grow angry with him stating that not only will they take the 3 angels when they finally get inside, but they will also rape his two daughters who are virgins. At this Lot begs the men to leave them in peace and the angels rescue him and cause all the men near Lot's house to go blind. This seems to be the last straw for the Lord because the angels tell Lot to go gather his family and flee the city that night because in the morning the Lord will destroy the city of Sodom, Gomorrah and all the plains surrounding it. Lot tells his family but they do not believe him and so it is just Lot, his wife and his two daughters that are saved.
As I was reading this chapter today and pondering on it, I got to thinking about the fairness of destroying the city and all its inhabitants in that manner. Surely there must have been a way to save the children at least. But as I got to thinking about it, what kind of a life would those children have? Since they could understand anything, they would have seen their parents treating their fellow citizens like garbage. Committing sexual whoredoms of the worst kind. And what is infinitely worse, they would have seen that based on how everyone else acted, this was normal and how they should be acting too! There really was no other way that the Lord could have saved anyone from those cities. Not to mention that any of the children who would have been under 8 years old, the age of accountability, would have immediately returned to Him and inherited eternal life. I shudder at the thought of such a city. I could not even imagine a city that evil, not in my wildest dreams.
The next part of the story has always baffled me. As Lot and the part of his family that would leave with him were fleeing, they were told not to look back by the angels. The scripture states that Lot's wife as they are fleeing turns back and is turned into a pillar of salt. Growing up I had always thought that was rather an extremely harsh punishment just for looking over her shoulder to see what was happening. However, as I have gotten older, I think the phrase indicating she turned back, actually means that she attempted to return to the city. I don't think the Lord would be so cruel as to so thoroughly kill someone whose curiosity got the best of them. I don't know why she would have tried to turn back and return to the city, perhaps some of her children were in her mind, perhaps she even had grandchildren, we don't know. We will learn some day I am sure.
The last part of the chapter for years always plagued me as extremely weird. Once Lot and his two daughters arrive in the mountains, the two women contrive a way to have sex with their father and get pregnant. As a teenager I was always really weirded out by this. As I got older I believe I heard someone teach, or maybe hypothesize, that the two girls assumed they were the last ones on the planet. After all, it had only been about 400 years since the flood, they would have heard the stories and it would not have been too far fetched for them to believe it was just the 3 of them. But today as I was reading the chapter, and a few days ago as I realized this story was coming up, I started thinking about it. If they really believed they were the last humans on earth, why didn't they just approach their father and explain their concern? Why did they get him drunk before having sex and getting pregnant? The JST confirms this by restoring the phrases that they "dealt wickedly" with their father. If they were truly concerned with repopluating the species, they would have told their father what they were afraid of and he could have either re-assured them what had happened, or gone along with their little plan. But the fact that they had to get him drunk before enacting their plan, they knew what they were doing was wrong but they did it anyway.
And so ends the tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which from all the stories the world was a much better place after it was destroyed. It is extremely sad that the Lord had to do it, but when you have a boil, it's best to lance it quickly and get it gone before it can infect the rest of the body. Until tomorrow.
It's interesting that you are studying this passage just as Becky posted about having a summer cottage in Babylon.
ReplyDeleteI imagine the daughters of Lot were just doing what they had seen done in Sodom and Gomorrah. They had grown up in a city of absolute moral corruption, and I imagine Lot didn't do a very good job of protecting his family (spiritually) from the evils of the city. In fact, he didn't really want to leave, right?
I just think of living in a place like that with my children. I would never let them set foot outside the house, and I would only even live in a place like that if it was necessary for my husband's job (he doesn't usually get a say in where he works) and I would leave as soon as we could afford to. It would be like trying to raise a family on Bourbon street in New Orleans. Smart, faithful parents just wouldn't try to do it. That's my opinion, anyway :)